QUEENPIN by Megan Abbott

GRADE: A-

It's always exciting discovering a new author, whose work I can't wait to dive into more. It's great reading a pulp noir novel from a woman's perspective (with a man as the "femme fatale" no less! ha!) and written with the same tough talk of some of the hard-boiled classics. In the book, a young, bright-eyed club bookkeeper finds herself living the good life after she becomes the protégé of an aging but still glamorous (and still ruthless) mob queen. She might lose everything after breaking the rules and falling hard for a two-bit gambler. Sexy and poetic, Megan Abbott's prose is the main star here. It starts off with all gun's blazing, never lets up, and makes it hard to put the book down. Here are two excerpts that give you a taste of her great writing:

"It was a soft sell, a long sell. I never knew what she had in mind until I already had such a taste I thought my tongue would never stop buzzing. Meaning, she got me in, she got me jobs, she got me fat stacks of cash too thick to wedge down my cleavage. She got me in with the hard boys, the fast money, and I couldn't get enough. I wanted more. Give me more."

-

"One night, he ripped my $350 faille day suit from collar to skirt hem in one long tear. Fuck me, I was in love.
I'm yours, that's what I told him without ever spitting out a word. He could see it on me, feel it on me. He liked to have me on the bare mattress, liked the way it rubbed me raw. I liked it. Liked the burn of it. Liked thinking of it all the next day, every time I leaned against anything, every time the strap of my brassiere pulled across it."

Can't wait to read more Megan Abbott, who has books with awesome titles like Bury Me Deep and The End of Everything